9. Anthony
nine
anthony
Sometimes, rolling up right on time is a blessing. Sometimes it’s a curse. In my case, today, it seems like both.
Ever since Penelope oh so politely asked me to get a quieter alarm, I’ve been having to rely on my Apple Watch. Let me tell you, they really need to up the vibrate on those things.
Because of that, I stride into the cafeteria of River Valley Middle School—my home for the next year—at exactly seven-fifty-nine, to complete and utter chaos on my first day of in-service. The curse is that I have no idea what’s going on. The blessing? It only takes a minute for the crotchety old guy at the podium to silence everyone, call us all to order, and explain.
“Alright, al right ! Everybody settle down so we can clear things up and get this over with.”
“Well, he’s pleasant,” I snort. I plop into an open seat at the round cafeteria table hosting the few people I can spot that I know.
Working at Meadow Ridge for the last two years gained me exactly one friend. His name was Gerald, and he retired last year. The rest of my team was full of cliquey teachers who formed a bond working together over the last decade, and also never grew accustomed for my penchant of actually disciplining students and following through on consequences—even if it meant taking away from my own prep period. They always told me I was “doing too much.” Well, excuse me for doing my job.
And besides. It’s definitely not the first time I’ve ever been told that I’m too much . Tell me something I don’t know.
“He needs a juice box and a nap,” Aaron Russo, the gym teacher, says.
“More like a Xanax and a sabbatical,” Sam Ford, the seventh grade science teacher chimes in.
I chuckle. I knew these two from the middle school coaching circuit, but really got to know them last year when we attended a coaching conference together—and my coaching partner ditched me. I’d make a better vouch for the staff at Meadow Ridge, but they kind of speak for themselves.
As I spread my thighs wide around the round stool, my body chemistry shifts of its own accord. I don’t even need to turn my head to see her curtain of red hair, or notice that her face is wrapped in a scowl that contorts her almost invisible freckles into different constellations than normal. I could’ve gotten by without the aroma of her coconut shampoo that now infiltrates all of our furniture.
I know I should stay away. I know better . And yet, I can’t help myself.
“Hey, roomie.”
It scratches up my throat like I’m nervous or something.
Anthony “Does Too Much” Ellis? Nervous? Never.
Or, sometimes. Only in the face of Penelope Barker.
She kicks my shin under the table.
“Ow .”
“Gross. Don’t call me that.”
She scowls. Is it bad that it kind of turns me on?
“Okay then, PJ .”
I can’t help myself. Riling her up is too much fun. Even if it does earn me a swift kick in the bruise she just gave me. I bend down to rub the tender spot.
“Aren’t you two supposed to like, co-teach together all year?” Aaron chuckles.
“Can’t even get through one in-service, let alone teaching math,” Sam says, jabbing him in the bicep.
Pen scowls. “We’ll be fine. Ant already knows plenty of math concepts, what with his mean dick and all.”
My shoulders sag, and I stare at her, my eyes unamused at half-staff.
“Wait,” Lucy, the school counselor, chuckles awkwardly. “I thought you two didn’t get along? Why are you talking about his…”
“They don’t, babes,” Juliet Ford, Sam’s wife and the seventh grade English teacher, pats her patronizingly on the shoulder. “ Mean is math-talk for average.”
“Oh!”
Her cheeks turn red, and Penelope lifts a sly brow at me as if to say check and mate . I’m about to make a comment, flying through the dozens in my head, when taps on the microphone catch our attention.
“My name is Don, and I am the principal here at River Valley. But effective today, I am retiring,” announces River Valley’s now former principal.
Woof .
Did I say called to order? More like called to chaos.
The cafeteria erupts into pandemonium. Some are furious, some are confused, still others are concerned. My table is a mixture of anxiety and relief.
“I can’t say I didn’t see this coming,” Juliet says with a shake of her head.
“He only really wanted this job for the retirement money anyway,” Lucy adds.
“Wait, he can seriously do that?” Penelope asks, outraged. “Take over for a few years and then base his retirement off of screwing us all over?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I answer. Can’t help myself .
“I wasn’t asking you ,” she bites, glaring at me before whipping her gaze around the table with an expression that says, Literally anyone else??? I sigh. So does Sam as he repeats my answer.
“Unfortunately, yes, he can. He held the job for at least a full contract year. He is well within his rights to retire, no matter how shitty it is to do it right before the school year starts.”
“He’s probably doing it to avoid this impending shit storm,” Aaron says, shaking his head between his hands. He pulls his baseball hat off his head and runs his fingers through his hair. Lucy, his fiancé, runs her hand up and down his back. I see Sam reach beneath the table and squeeze his wife’s thigh. My fingers itch to run that fire engine waterfall of red through my fingers and comfort Pen, but I know she’d bite them off before I even got the chance.
“So what happens next?” Lucy asks.
At this moment, Don taps the microphone, which squeals out of the speakers like a dying cat. Half the room ducks their heads and covers their ears.
“You’re probably all wondering what happens next.” Don lays both arms on the edges of the podium and leans closer to the mic. “At this point, Nathan Harding—River Valley’s assistant principal—will be taking over in my chair. Unfortunately, with Meadow Ridge’s assistant principal out on maternity leave, we have no one to slot into that position, at least until she returns after Thanksgiving break. The job has been posted both internally and wide. If any of you have your administrator’s license and would like to step up to the plate, please let HR know as soon as possible so we can get the ball rolling. I’d like to say a few words…”
No one listens to a word of the man’s half-assed farewell. They’re either too pissed or too nervous to focus on anything other than the fact that we will effectively be starting the year with fifty-percent more students and with no formal principal.
“Why isn’t your principal stepping up?” Sam asks me.
“She’s over at the other building we were split between, and it sounds like most of our behaviors went over there. They’re going to need her more.”
“More than she’ll be needed here?” Lucy asks. “I’m sorry, but if we have no principal, and they have two …”
I sigh. “I know. Hopefully they’ll pull their heads out of their asses and pull her over for the time being.”
And in the meantime …
Something in me buzzes. I went to school for this. I have my administrator license. I am fit for the job. The job that I’ve been steadily working up the courage to pursue since I started teaching. Being an administrator has always been my goal. I’ve just been too timid to reach up and take it. Now, it’s as if the branch with the shiny apple has lowered right into the palm of my hand.
I don’t have much time to contemplate. We are ushered into a day’s worth of meetings. I daydream through an entire seminar about co-teaching. I could reach out and take the role as AP for the year to get my feet wet. But at the same time, taking it would be sacrificing a year in the same classroom with Penelope.
I bang through the garage door with my phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear.
“I just don’t want you putting too much pressure on yourself,” Mom says on the other line.
“I’ll be fine, Ma.” I grunt, struggling as the strap to my lunch bag tangles with my backpack, both now dragging to the crook of my elbow.
“You’re building a new house, and after the last two years you’ve had, starting in a new building this year, I just don’t think taking on a leadership role is?—”
“ Fuck .”
My shoe catches as the quick-closing door bats my ankle—the one with a purpling bruise thanks to my roommate—and my entire armload comes tumbling down. Backpack and all of its unzipped contents, lunchbox, water bottle with a straw that holds no mercy. It all becomes waterlogged in a span of three seconds flat. I am about ready to blow my top.
“Ma, let me call you back,” I grunt, interrupting her lecture about why I shouldn’t have stepped up to hang up the call.
I snag the dish towel from where it hangs on the bar to the oven door, and start fruitlessly mopping it up with my foot. It takes about five more seconds for me to give up, chuck the soppy towel into the laundry room, and extinguish an entire roll of paper towels cleaning up my mess. All the while, I try to make sense of what’s in my head.
Of course I did it.
They asked for someone to step up, and I’d felt a push on my insides driving me to do it—to be their assistant principal, if only until ours returns from maternity leave. The meeting was only for information, but still, leaving that office with a bunch of smiling faces like I could be “the guy” had me on a high.
Of course, it all came crashing down the second my old colleagues got wind of it. You know, the ones who always say I’m “doing too much.” It was like I was back in middle school, being teased and harassed for being the teacher’s pet. Their teasing hasn’t soured my motivation at all. I still really want to help. It did, however, really sour my attitude.
My funk of not being good enough was a storm cloud churning bigger and badder as the day dragged on. A cloud of Anthony and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad In-Service followed me home. Really, as I finish mopping up my mess and take my dripping backpack and lunch bag to the front porch to dry out, all I want is a Red Sox win with my leftover Bill’s Pizza. I brought home pizza last night for Pen and I to share, and honestly? I’ve been dreaming about that last chicken fajita slice since lunch.
But when I come back in through the front door and look through to the kitchen to see it half-eaten, dangling above Penelope’s wide open mouth?
Oh. The fumes coming out of my ears are un real.
I storm over, ignoring the way that my socks squish with each step.
“ What do you think you’re doing?” I bark, fists clenched at my sides, shoulders hunched.
She pauses, jaw dropped, the last half of my happiness dangling mere centimeters from her lips.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asks through a narrowing gaze.
I exhale harshly through my nose.
“That’s my pizza.”
“What makes it your pizza? It’s leftovers . You didn’t call dibs on it, did you?”
In my cloud of crankiness, I miss the tiny hint that she might waver and hand back the uneaten slice. But I let my attitude take the wheel, and use the nickname I know she hates as a weapon.
“It’s called consideration, PJ. The least you could’ve done would’ve been to ask me first.”
At the mention of PJ , I see the sparkling mischief turn to annoyance. Her tongue darts out, and before I can stop her, she runs it the length of the remaining pizza.
“I licked it. Now it’s mine.”
She Humphs as punctuation to that statement. I reach for it, about to remind her that my tongue has been on hers so I really don’t give a fuck if her saliva is on my pizza, when she folds the rest and shoves it in her mouth like a petulant toddler trying to have its way.
The sound that comes out of me isn’t human. It’s a combo of grunt, snarl, and something predatory that means back the fuck off of my property . Except my property is now sliding down her gullet. I stomp right back out the front door without looking back.
Sure, it’s a small problem. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s the proverbial straw that broke my back. Lump that in with the fact that she did it to spite me, and toss the cherry on top that I’m so sickeningly in love with this girl for shits and giggles, and my day has effectively gone to shit.
Yeah, I said it. I’m in love with her. Have been since that night on the beach—since that first day of the trip when she told me her secrets and I told her mine, really. But I messed it up, and now I’m living in my own chapter of purgatory as the consequence. Sharing a living space, a couch, a fridge with the woman, basically has me at her beck and call. My heart is doing backflips to try and win her back when my head knows we can never have her.
I sit on the front porch for God only knows how long. Head hanging between my legs, prickles of concrete digging into my hands from where they’re pressed into the step, feet planted firmly on the ground.
How the hell am I supposed to spend the rest of this year sharing every available space with this woman when I can barely breathe just thinking about her?
I can picture that last night on the beach as if it’s playing out right in front of me. Pen in a cute navy romper thing that complimented the red glow of her hair under the moonlight. Me in an old Red Sox tee and jeans. We had a little too much to drink, but when I told her the only way back to the beach after midnight was to jump over the locked fence, she lofted herself over on the second try.
Right into my waiting arms. Right there for me to catch her.
I know what a fool I am that I let her get away.
I can still feel the crunch of the cold sand beneath my butt and between my toes. She’d flopped down, toed off her wedgey heels, and started drawing aimless little pictures in the sand with her white-tipped toes while we talked about everything and nothing.
It was the night she told me about her books. It was the night I told her about how lost I felt. And then, after we’d spotted some vacant beach chairs, she’d given me a line I teased her for. The age old I’m cold . Penelope Barker cozied up against my chest beneath an endlessly starry sky should have been the start of my new beginning. Instead, I made it the beginning to my own demise.
Because when we met in the middle for a kiss neither of us can entirely claim to have started, all of those lost pieces I’d admitted to found their way home.
When I gripped her thigh, her ass, and lofted her up and onto my lap, wheels started cranking with a momentum I hadn’t felt since leaving for college over a decade ago.
When I parted from our heated kiss to see her bright blue eyes with the backdrop of a starry sky behind her, I should have put on the brakes, told her the truth, and asked her to help me make a game plan.
But I couldn’t resist her. My fire engine siren. The light in the darkness that came at the exact wrong time.
Because when it came down to it, I was a coward. I texted Penelope, flirted with her, FaceTimed when our schedules were too busy, and said we should grab a drink when it looked like they were clearing up. I made endless promises that dug me deeper and deeper every time. And when Avery showed up on my front doorstep the night before my date with Pen, tears in her eyes, begging me to take her back, I choked. Ghosted Penelope. Left her high and dry at the restaurant I’d picked. Tucked my tail between my legs and tried to do the right thing with the girl I had once thought was my forever.
The one who I fell out of love with a long time ago, but didn’t have the guts to tell her. So now, I’m paying my penance. Maybe part of that penance is living and working with the one woman I can’t have.
The sun is setting somewhere behind me. It rises with the new day right in front of my bedroom window. I know. I’ve sat up all night and seen it rise. I can’t do it tonight though. With the first day of school around the corner, I need to do my best to manage my insomnia without disturbing my new roommate in the process. I already broke her heart. She’ll kill me if I break her sleep schedule too.